this week in science 2022
- Science
How well you do at school depends on how much your teachers know: Insights from 14 French-speaking countries in Africa
Teachers’ subject knowledge boosts student skills. Authors supplied Countries in sub-Saharan Africa have made remarkable progress towards reaching universal school…
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Air pollution from fires hits world’s poorest hardest: study
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain People in poorer countries are disproportionately suffering from air pollution spewed from the increasing scourge of…
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Scientists regenerate neurons that restore walking in mice after paralysis from spinal cord injury
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain In a new study in mice, a team of researchers from UCLA, the Swiss Federal Institute…
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Why invasive ants are a silent threat to our ecosystems
The yellow crazy ant (Anoplolepis gracilipes) is a notorious invasive ant species. Credit: Lukman_M/Shutterstock Invertebrates are often described by experts…
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A brief history of abortion—from ancient Egyptian herbs to fighting stigma today
You might be forgiven for thinking of abortion as a particularly modern phenomenon. But there’s plenty of evidence to suggest…
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Sex life discovery raises IVF hope for endangered purple cauliflower soft coral
by Meryl Larkin, David Harasti, Kirsten Benkendorff, Stephen D. A. Smith and Tom R Davis, The Conversation The life cycle…
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Scientists find ‘missing ingredient’ for pink diamonds
Pink diamonds are incredibly rare — and expensive. Scientists know think they know how they were formed. Scientists said on…
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Scientists warn entire branches of the ‘Tree of Life’ are going extinct
Scientists warn that entire genera are being driven to extinction by human activities including overfishing. Humans are driving the loss…
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Pacific lamprey: The jawless fish that survived 4 mass extinctions and sucks prey dry of blood and body fluids
Instead of a jaw, lampreys have a sucker mouth that they use to latch onto prey. (Image credit: Marli Miller/UCG/Universal…
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Workers uncover eight mummies and pre-Inca objects while expanding the gas network in Peru
Archaeologists uncover bones and vessels discovered by city workers who were digging a natural gas line for the company Calidda…
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Saturday Citations: Cutting the middleman out of spider silk synthesis; hungry black holes; Osiris-Rex is back!
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain This week, we reported on spider silk synthesis without spiders, and how policymakers are pursuing a…
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Space photo of the week: The sun’s violent corona like it’s never been seen before
What it is: The sun’s outer atmosphere, as captured by the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) on Solar Orbiter, a European…
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Historians race to find Great Lakes shipwrecks before quagga mussels destroy the sites
This Aug. 17, 2021 photo shows Quagga mussels cover the engine of a Bell P-39 Airacobra military plane in Lake…
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Arizona’s sweltering summer could set new record for most heat-associated deaths in big metro
A man uses an umbrella to block the sun at a bus stop, Sunday, July 30, 2023, in Phoenix. America’s…
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Largest asteroid sample ever collected is coming down to Earth
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Chunks of asteroid that could tell us about the earliest days of the 4.5 billion-year-old solar…
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What would colors look like on other planets?
The human brain is remarkably good at adjusting to different light conditions. Think about wearing a pair of tinted sunglasses:…
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Recycling plastic not enough, warns UN environment chief
Inger Andersen, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme, speaks during an interview at…
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Crowdfunding conservation: A Pacific island’s plan to protect its waters
A a Humpback Whale seen swimming past Niue Island in the South Pacific. For a little under $150, you can…
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Biologists in slow and steady race to help North America’s largest and rarest tortoise species
Herpetologist Harry Greene holds a Bolson tortoise released on Armendariz Ranch in Engel, New Mexico, on Friday, Sept. 22, 2023.…
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Environmental physicist discusses marine heat waves
Global average sea surface temperature (1982–2011). The mean is dashed in black; the 2023 temperature is more than four standard…
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Direct synthesis of fluorinated carbon materials via solid-state mechanochemical reaction between graphite and PTFE
Schematic presentation of mechanochemical ball-milling polytetrafluoroethyelene (PTFE) and graphite at different rotation speeds. Credit: UNIST A research team, led by…
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Study explores supergiant iceberg’s huge impact on surrounding ocean surface
The melting of the supergiant iceberg A-68 had a huge impact on the ocean around South Georgia, in sub-Antarctica. Credit:…
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Biologist explains why there were so many mosquitoes this year
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain If you think there were more mosquitoes this year than usual, you’re not wrong. Spring and…
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Wildlife mitigating measures no help for Ottawa’s freshwater turtles, says study
Credit: University of Ottawa Urban sprawl and insufficient relief measures have left an Ottawa-area freshwater turtle facing extinction within the…
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Opinion: As space exploration and colonization expand, off-Earth resources will create a booming market
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain The drive to explore deeper into space and establish colonies on other planets has intensified over…
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Generating homozygous mutant populations of barley microspores by ethyl methanesulfonate treatment
by Beijing Zhongke Journal Publising Co. Ltd. Pipeline used to produce homozygous mutants by microspore culture. Various concentrations of the…
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Companies in Germany are adapting to the consequences of extreme weather events
Start-ups, liquidations and their balance from 2017 to 2021. Source: Statistics on commercial start-ups and liquidations from the IfM Bonn…
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How does voltage drive nonmetallic catalysts to perform electrocatalytic reactions?
(a) a schematic of in-situ surface potential measurement set-up and potential drops acrossthe electrode–electrolyte interface for metal, semi-metal and semiconductor…
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Re-wetting is key for boosting carbon dioxide storage in southern peatlands, finds study
Shrub wetlands along the SE coast of the United States will absorb and store carbon dioxide if they can be…
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Is there more to palm oil than deforestation?
Palm oil fresh fruit bunches. Credit: Sophie-Dorothe Lieke Palm oil is the world’s most produced and consumed vegetable oil and…
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Can cloud-based quantum computing really offer a quantum advantage?
The input to the service is a user-designed quantum circuit. The service begins with qubit allocation, which relates physical qubits…
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The deep genetic structure of Africa reveals unique ancestry of inhabitants of the Angolan Namib
Namib desert in the southwest of Angola. Credit: Sandra Oliveira Africa is the birthplace of modern humans and the continent…
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Pollen analysis suggests dispersal of modern humans occurred during a major Pleistocene warming spell
Map showing theorized migration routes of early Homo sapiens from Africa across Eurasia. Credit: Ted Goebel It’s an Ice Age…
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Mysterious giant bubble found near our galaxy could be relic from the Big Bang
A mysterious structure nearly 1 billion light-years across has been found in our cosmic neighborhood, and it could be a…
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Ashes of orca Tokitae finally home after her death last month in Miami
by Lynda V. Mapes, The Seattle Times Credit: CC0 Public Domain Tokitae the orca has come home. Not to swim…
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At-home DNA tests predict how you’ll respond to drugs — but how well do they work?
Have you ever wondered why certain medications don’t seem to work as well for you as they do for others? This variability…
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From ‘Money Heist’ to ‘Squid Game’: The ‘glocal’ strategy that keeps Netflix afloat
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Money Heist is the most watched Spanish series of all time thanks to Netflix, which launched…
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An ancient, ravenous black hole has been hiding an 11-billion-year-old galaxy in its glare
Using the Hubble Space Telescope, a team of astronomers has used a tricky technique to discover an elusive 11-billion-year-old galaxy.…
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Q&A: Is hopelessness a US public health crisis?
Credit: Princeton University Press How can the world’s wealthiest country be so poor in hope? It’s a question that a…
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James Webb telescope finds potential signature of life on Jupiter’s icy moon Europa
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has revealed homemade carbon dioxide on Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, raising the possibility that…
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Research presents new development model for the world’s third-longest river
The Upper Yangtze River. Credit: Eric Kirby A new research paper published in Science Advances reveals how changes in the…
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Landslide reveals 2,500-year-old ‘richly decorated’ gold necklaces in Spain
Two “richly decorated” gold necklaces that were likely buried in a hoard about 2,500 years ago recently saw the light…
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Negative ‘retweets’ appear to add to voter fraud conspiracy theories
The retweet distributions resulting from conformity, anticonformity, content, and follower influence using this ABM (100 iterations each), alongside the observed…
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Bronze Age hexagonal ‘pyramid’ not like anything ‘found before in the Eurasian steppe’
Archaeologists in Kazakhstan have discovered a 3,800-year-old hexagon-shaped structure that they describe as a “pyramid.” The maze-like structure is not…
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NASA’s OSIRIS-REx is poised to return bits of the asteroid Bennu to Earth
Seven years is a long time to wait for your carrier service to deliver a package. That’s how long it’s…
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Discovery in mosquitoes could lead to new strategy against dengue fever and other mosquito-borne vectors
Generation of Ago2 knockout Ae. aegypti lines and the effect of Ago2 disruption on arbovirus infection and transmission. a flowchart…
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Roman glass keeps turning into photonic crystals. Scientists finally know why
Roman glass buried for 2,000 years is slowly transforming into a strange type of crystal that refracts light in surprising…
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These brainless jellyfish use their eyes and bundles of nerves to learn
For Caribbean box jellyfish, learning is literally a no-brainer. In a new experiment, these animals learned to spot and avoid…
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Gold nanoclusters can improve electrochemical water splitting to produce hydrogen
Credit: Polyoxometalates (2023). DOI: 10.26599/POM.2023.9140031 As energy demand continues to rise, research into new, efficient renewable and clean energy sources…
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Study analyzes strategies for airlines to boost on-time performance
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Airlines have long competed to enhance their on-time performance, and new research from the University at…
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